Supporting African-American and Pan African Theatre
A few months ago, I thought carefully about how ROUTES might show its support of African-American theatre. I decidedly chose August, as a point in time, to profile ten such companies located throughout the United States. And why August? Well, in the 1970s, I recall having a discussion about the origins of African-American theatre with the late African-American theatre historian Dr. Helen Johnson. She explained the relevancy of August to African-American theatre: it was traditional for such companies to stage their productions during August, when mainstream theatre companies would shut down their facilities. It was considered too hot and uncomfortable for typically white companies to perform, and, for patrons to sit through theatre productions. So presumably, a solution to this loss of revenue problem was to allow plays by African-American companies and opportunities for their patrons to stage in-house productions.
Thus, let’s say that ROUTES is carrying on this August tradition, in a certain fashion, by introducing our audience to the 2021-22 season of African-American theatre. Over the next few months, we hope to keep you abreast of the offerings by companies around the US. By the way, I mentioned this information to the artistic director of one company, who had been unaware of the beginnings of the August tradition; he hopes to investigate further? So, if he finds out more about this tradition, then I have, I guess, justified why African-American publishers are indeed relevant. We begin Tuesday, August 3, with the North Carolina Black Repertory Company.
During the Month of August, ROUTES will go RETRO, too: there will appear theatre articles of productions and interviews with artistic directors, producers and even some videos published since ROUTES’ founding in 1977.
I’ve linked our list of known African-American theatre companies. If a company you know of is missing from this list, email me at ronn@routes-mag.com.
Taking a look at how African-American theatre productions have dramatically dwindled since 1977, below are two pages excerpted from ROUTES’ November 1977 issue. (The list is more readable here, Pages 31 & 32.) There were some 50+productions — count them. Theatre productions, by contrast over the past several years, are light years below those numbers. So let’s help local community theatre companies improve their financial stability by donating $50 to them this year and every year. We all know how important African-American theatre is to carrying on our legacies. So this year I will personally donate $50 to a theatre company — join me and do the same. Ask your friends to do so too.